xi, 210 pages : 29 cm

During the second half of the nineteenth century, in an effort to combat diseases such as the plague and cholera that spread with impunity across international borders, Iran was at the center of international politics and cooperation. The studies in this book begin with the role Iran played in the international efforts to mitigate the spread of these diseases at a time when the international medical community differed in their opinions about the contagious nature of these diseases and the need and usefulness of quarantine. The essays continue with discussing malaria and rinderpest, which also caused a great deal of human misery and economic loss. The Iranian government, as well as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company--a major employer at the time--took steps to suppress and mitigate the effects of these diseases that ravaged the work force. Influenza was a relatively unknown disease for Iran, which in 1918 caused many deaths, like in the rest of the world, and thereafter, became part of its annual disease pattern. Finally, a rather little known medical condition, that of geophagy--the practice of eating earth--is discusses. In the 1850s, to develop its own medical infrastructure and improve public health the government of Iran hired foreign physicians such as Joseph-Désiré Tholozan and Johannes Lodewijk Schlimmer to train future Iranian physicians and provide medical advice and technical assistance. The essays about these two doctors contain exciting new research and information--back cover

Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-203) and index

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